If you want birds that look like what the standard is written, then your best bet is to find a breeder. If you just want some pretty birds that will lay eggs for you, then a hatchery will do fine. I am very happy with MPC as far as their service goes. There was an issue with my order, the hatchery had an incubator issue and half my order didn't hatch so they had to push back the shipping date and I was definitely not happy about that. Others who only had one or two of the breeds that were affected by the incubator issue received their order minus that breed, and they were less than happy about that. But these things happen from time to time. The shipping is very expensive (shipping was more than the cost of the 8 chicks), but they got here the very next day and all my chicks were healthy and active upon arrival. And they sent an extra (not sure if it was in case one died or because of the incubator issue that caused the order to be late).
As to the birds themselves, they all seem pretty healthy. One of my easter eggers has a pretty severe cross beak, which would be less likely if I had gotten chicks from a breeder but is always a risk with hatcheries. It's not super common, but it's not uncommon either. Another of my EE's is clean faced (missing the beard and muffs), but she is laying a green egg which was the whole point behind getting the EE in the first place so that's ok. My SLW has the wrong comb, she has a single comb instead of the rose comb, and her lacing isn't nearly as pretty as laced birds from breeders that I have seen. But she's pretty and healthy and I do like her and since I have absolutely no intention of showing or breeding her it's not really a big deal. My speckled sussex have way too much white, but they are very pretty IMO and, again, I have no intention of breeding or showing them so it's not really a big issue for me. My exchequer leghorn has white legs (the standard calls for yellow) and I think too much black. So most of my girls only somewhat look like they are "supposed" to. But for what I have chickens for that's ok.
